"Hermione. Want to get tea?"
Kevin nodded toward a small shop set slightly back from the main street — Mrs. Partridge's, warm light in the windows, little paper hearts hung along the sills. It had the particular quality of a place that expected couples.
Hermione looked at it. Looked at him. Her cheeks went pink. She nodded.
Harry and Ron had already disappeared into the joke shop, eyes bright with the energy of people discovering they had pocket money and zero supervision. They wouldn't surface for a while.
The bell above the door chimed as Kevin and Hermione stepped in.
Mrs. Partridge was round and cheerful, her hair in a neat bun, and she looked at their linked hands with the expression of someone who considered young love to be personally validating.
"Ah, you two — first date?"
"Just tea," Hermione said, a little too quickly. Her ears had gone red.
"Of course, of course." Mrs. Partridge smiled like she knew better and showed them to a corner table.
Kevin ordered two house specials without looking at the menu. Once Mrs. Partridge bustled off, Hermione looked at him sideways and kicked him lightly under the table.
"Ow. What now?"
"You did that on purpose," she said.
"Did what?"
She huffed and turned away.
Kevin pulled his chair around so they were side by side rather than opposite, which Hermione had clearly not expected and didn't object to. He took her left hand with his right and set both on the table.
She tugged once. Then stopped.
The bracelets caught the candlelight — the gems gave off the faintest luminescence as their wrists rested together, barely there. Neither of them remarked on it.
The tea arrived. They talked easily, the way they always did when the world gave them a quiet corner.
"No going home for Christmas this year," Kevin said.
Hermione nodded. "Because of Sirius. And the Dementors." She leaned her head against his shoulder, watching steam curl from her cup. "Something always happens here. The history books don't mention half of it."
"Isn't that great? Fresh material every year."
"You think fighting Voldemort is an adventure."
"Absolutely."
She rolled her eyes, but the corner of her mouth moved.
They lingered until the cups were empty and the pastries gone, then wandered the other shops with their hands linked, in no particular hurry. When it was time to head back, Kevin jogged to the edge of the village and found Harry.
"Kevin —" Harry started.
"Don't argue." Kevin scooped him up onto his shoulders and ran.
"I can walk —"
"You can, yes. But this is faster."
Harry endured it with the dignity available to him, which was limited.
Back at Hogwarts, Kevin set Harry down in the back garden and they waited in the pale afternoon light.
"Fun day?" Kevin asked.
"It was good," Harry said honestly. "Ron and I found brilliant stuff in the joke shop."
Harry pulled out several individually wrapped sweets and offered one. Kevin took it, popped it into his mouth —
And spat it straight out.
"Harry."
"Ha!" Harry's face split open with pure joy. "Payback. For the last time."
Kevin stared at him. Then lunged.
Harry bolted. Kevin caught him in four steps and jammed a poop-flavoured egg into his mouth while Harry kicked and swatted in panic.
Harry stuffed the half-eaten one back at Kevin. Kevin fought him off laughing, and they wrestled each other around the garden making sounds that brought McGonagall around the corner with a group of first-years in tow.
She looked at the two boys retching theatrically in the shrubbery.
She decided she had not seen this.
"Clean yourselves up before setting foot in the castle," she said, and kept walking.
They cleaned up and went inside to find Ron and Draco in the entrance hall, snickering.
Kevin caught both of their mouths simultaneously and deposited candy.
"Yuck —!"
"Yuck —!"
Ron and Draco collapsed. Kevin and Harry sprinted for the common room, howling.
The laughter died as they reached the portrait hole.
Fat Lady's portrait was in ribbons.
Slashes, deep and deliberate, across the canvas. She was gone.
Students were crowded outside, buzzing with frightened whispers. Kevin scanned the nearby portraits.
"She's over there," he said.
The Fat Lady had taken refuge in a large painting of a hippopotamus at a watering hole, peeking out from behind the animal's flank with wide, terrified eyes.
Harry moved toward her. "What happened?"
"Sirius Black!" She was shaking. "He tried to get into Gryffindor Tower — when I wouldn't let him in, he —"
Dumbledore arrived with Filch at his shoulder, face set hard.
"Filch, alert all professors. Full search of the castle. All students to the Great Hall — now."
His tone left no room for questions.
On the walk to the Great Hall, Harry seized Kevin's arm and said quietly, "We have to find him. Find out the truth."
"Not tonight," Kevin said. "Sirius picked his moment — half the school was in Hogsmeade, fewer eyes around. Now the whole castle knows he was here. He won't be in the corridors, Harry. He'll be somewhere hidden, or he'll have got out entirely."
Harry opened his mouth.
"When he wants to be found, he'll find you," Kevin said. "He came here for a reason. That reason hasn't changed."
Harry was quiet for a moment. Then he nodded.
They filed into the Great Hall with the rest of the school.